I District, You District, We District, Redistrict
The president’s demands cause drama in Albany—and other federal fallout worth watching
Staying in town for the end of the summer? Come to our happy hour on Wednesday, August 20!
Abundance isn’t just about skyscrapers, subway lines, and solar farms—we also care about the state itself. We need a strong public sector that can deliver for citizens, and we need inclusive and representative democracy that ensures policymakers are responsive to all people.
Low turnout off-cycle primaries keep unimaginative incumbents in power. Unelected, unrepresentative Community Boards have outsize influence over policy impacting everyone. Residents who speak at hearings tend to be older, whiter, and wealthier than communities at large. Our institutions reflect the needs of a few, don’t deliver for the many, and voters get ever-more disaffected and apathetic.
Right now—with lawmaking done for the cycle and the mayoral election in a late-summer lull—it’s the democracy debate that’s taking center stage in Albany.
President Trump is demanding that GOP-led states redraw their congressional lines this year (even though lines were already redrawn following the 2020 census) to squeeze out additional Republican-leaning seats ahead of next year’s midterms. Texas, where Trump is demanding five more seats, is ground zero. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court seems poised to strike down what remains of the Voting Rights Act’s anti-gerrymandering provisions.
Gerrymandering takes the unrepresentative institutions we lament in New York to their logical extreme; it’s not just a few voters choosing their representatives, it’s the representatives choosing their voters. Extreme gerrymandering insulates electeds from accountability, freeing them to pass deeply unpopular legislation like the recent “One Big Beautiful Bill” increasing the deficit with tax cuts for the wealthy and ramping up ICE funding to make it the largest law enforcement agency in the nation at the expense of Medicaid, SNAP, and climate investments.
It’s not just lines on a map—it’s people losing access to lifesaving care, food assistance to avoid hunger, and the action today that will protect us from devastating weather emergencies tomorrow.
Blue states are fighting back, disinclined to unilaterally disarm in the struggle for House control. They’re hosting Texas Democrats who have left the state to deny quorum to the special redistricting session, and they’re teeing up retaliatory redistricting themselves. The problem is that many are hamstrung by their good government commitments to independent line-drawing and bans on partisan gerrymandering.
New York is just such a case. Governor Hochul says she’s open to a constitutional amendment to let the legislature draw mid-decade maps, though the decennial maps would still be drawn by our Independent Redistricting Commission.
Notably, New York Democratic leaders had a chance to draw a more Democratic-leaning map last year, after Hochul’s nominee to the state’s top court, Hector LaSalle, was blocked and a progressive 4-3 majority was secured. But party leaders passed on the opportunity. Now they’re swimming upstream.
Our legislators are dealing with the fallout of Trump’s redistricting demands—but that’s not the only federal action impacting New York that will be on legislators’ minds next term. The OBBB’s cuts will hit New York in the pocketbook, masked ICE agents (and their terrorizing copycats) are tearing communities apart, and the president's war on renewables has already led to plug-pulling on urgently needed transmission lines.
Amid the fight over redistricting and the fallout of broader federal action, we shouldn’t neglect the opportunities we have to build a more responsive, representative democracy—and a more affordable, safe, sustainable New York. See below for those opportunities and other updates from the city and state.
How We Can Strengthen Democracy Beyond District Lines
🗳️ Pass the charter amendments—including question 5, which would get the ball rolling on moving municipal elections to higher turnout even years.
🙋 Join or testify at Community Boards, where fewer than 3,000 appointees speak for nearly nine million neighbors. Read Abundance community member Sachi Takahashi-Rial’s take on CBs and the charter amendments.
💸 Read Citizens Union’s report on the power of small dollar donations within New York’s robust public financing program. In June, matched grassroots contributions proved far more powerful than Super PAC millions.
Abundance Updates Beyond Democracy
Rails and Trails
🚆 Governor Hochul announced the next phase of the Interborough Express, a light rail line connecting Queens and Brooklyn that will open a huge swath of the city to new homes and economic growth.
🌳 Speaking of Queens rail, the Trump administration is clawing back over $100 million allocated for a park to be built on the site of abandoned tracks. A silver lining? This might mean a competing project to create park space and transit could get a new lease on life.
Street Safety Steps Forward and Back
🚲 Park vs. rail isn’t the only scarcity-minded public realm fight unfolding in the city. The Adams administration ripped out a stretch of a protected bike lane on Bedford Avenue after community complaints.
🚗 Meanwhile, the city council is considering allocating parking spots at intersections to daylighting—providing visibility to drivers and pedestrians to reduce traffic deaths.
Resilience and Renewables
🌧️ Those intersections could be used for bioswales and other infrastructure designed to increase resilience, critical as formerly rare downpours become ever more frequent and flood city sewers and subways.
⚡ Alongside resilience, the state is being pressed to meet its emissions reductions goals. On that front, the state just enacted rules requiring electric hookups in new buildings rather than gas. Also reducing pollution: congestion pricing. Early data shows cleaner air in the zone.
The City’s Climate Superpowers
🏘️ Our true climate superpower is dense, walkable neighborhoods—with density providing the added benefit of affordability. As the Times covered overcrowding that artificially deflates homelessness numbers, new data showed what we already knew: building more homes, even “luxury” ones, reduces displacement for everyone.
🪡 New York will soon have the opportunity to build 10,000 new homes in dense midtown Manhattan through the passage of the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan. Read my op-ed today on why this is such a powerful opportunity to reclaim New York’s lost housing ambition.